Authors: Nic Brown
She watches young men. Part of her understands that they are at their most appealing like thisâseen across leaf-littered gray sidewalks, wrapped in nylon and wool, book laden, dreamed-of only. They shuffle past. Maria is quiet, still behind her bangs, but she is not meek. A confidence new to her has filled these first few days in New Haven. She is comfortable in the sight of strangers now. When she meets their gaze, she does not feel the need to smile and nod. She can just look right back. She thinks she is perhaps less kind these days, more stingy with her emotion.
With several dark blue envelopes containing information about university enrollment, Maria skips all orientation events and instead returns to her new apartment. It is on the third floor of a large old house off Bristol Street, where the ceilings fall at sharp, odd angles in tandem with the heavily gabled roof. Holes in the plaster mark where the artwork of former tenants once hung. It does not feel like a home. It is a vessel for long-term passengers.
Her roommate, Jennifer, is a sophomore whom Maria found on Facebook. Jennifer's mother accompanied her from New Jersey to help with the move and has, since they arrived, been sleeping on Jennifer's floor. No one has said when or if Jennifer's mother is going to leave, or why she is even staying. Maria has yet to ask. The woman keeps her white hair in a bun and wears large wire-rimmed glasses, white running shoes, and the same floral dress every day. That morning in the kitchen, she retrieved an empty glass jar from the trash and gave Maria a detailed description of how she makes bath salts and uses “these containers” to hold them. “It's good for Christmas,” she said. Maria does not know if this woman has anywhere else to go. She exudes desperation. Something, Maria is sure, is not right.
Soon after Maria enters her bedroom, Jennifer knocks on the door.
The roommate wipes at her eyes, which are red. Jennifer is a kind, very pale cellist from Basking Ridge. “Fuck,” she says.
“What?” Maria says. “It's alright.”
“I know you're probably wondering when my mom is going to leave.”
“It's OK.”
“She's between houses,” Jennifer says. Her voice cracks as she speaks. She is clearly mortified. Overwhelmed. “There's, um . . . It's hard to explain . . .”
“She can stay here as long as she wants,” Maria says. “As far as I'm concerned.”
“Seriously?”
“You don't have to explain. Yeah.”
“Oh my God,” Jennifer says. She is blindsided with relief. She begins to cry. “I'm sorry. Oh my God.”
TWO DAYS LATER
, on the sidewalk returning from class, Maria finds Jennifer at the mailbox.
“This came,” she says, holding out a padded envelope. It has been forwarded to Maria from her address in Chapel Hill.
Within, Maria feels the edges and heft of a book. The return address is the Children's Home Society of North Carolina. She knows what this is. Adoption service guidelines require it be submitted to birth parents once every year. It's a photo album of Bonacieux.
She is unsure about whether or not she even wants to look. For the first time in months, she can feel the promise of new days. Enrollment in her studio art classes has made her stomach ache with excitement. The café near her apartment appears to teem with unlimited mystery. She recognized the name of one of her professors in the
Times
. She is nervous of it all, so potent and fragile and scary. But she cannot resist the urge to see new photos of Bonacieux. Jennifer has already started up the icy steps. Maria peels the package open.
Inside she does not find a photo album. Instead it is Maria's blue sketchbook, the one in which she had drawn so many portraits of Bonacieux while in Beaufort. There is nothing else, no note. Maria unties the blue ribbon and looks inside. Her drawings. Strapped to Philip's chest in a sling, Bonacieux faces forward, reaching toward
Maria. She drinks a bottle in Nina's lap, wearing nothing but a diaper. She sleeps in her car seat. Her face is in shadow, the sun falling just below her chin. In a baby pool, she is sketched from behind. She wears a flowered sun hat that glows against the background. She is laughing, staring straight up. Her mouth open in glee. Gums. She is asleep, holding her bear. That flesh. Again, Maria is lifting her daughter from the crib, arms and legs going around her. She is kissing her. She is holding her up to be seen. The light falls on her. The child doesn't look like Maria. She doesn't look like Jack. She looks only like herself.
Here, alone, Maria will tie shut her sketchbook. She will wash her chapped hands in the apartment's cracked sink. See a matinee by herself. She will buy the coat hangers that she has forgotten to pack. There is a student from her painting class who will pass her on the street and nod, silently; it will please her to be recognized. The lights in her apartment will appear from the street below, windows glowing on the top floor there like the cabin of a slow-moving ship. There is ice on the steps, but she is not afraid. Maria starts up them, running, leaping from one icy step to another.
T
HE AUTHOR WOULD
like to acknowledge the assistance of the University of Mississippi and John and Renee Grisham for providing the support, time, and space to finish this novel.
A portion of this work was originally published in the spring 2013 issue of
Glimmer Train
, under the title “Life Drawing.”
Nat Jacks, Jack Shoemaker, Daniel Wallace, Chris Offutt, Rosecrans Baldwin, Kevin Moffett, Eli Horowitz, Edan Lepucki, Leslie Jamison, Danielle Evans, Tom Franklin, Mathew Vollmer, Jess Walter, Winburne and Joan King, Patty Boyd, and Abby Brown each provided essential support.
This novel is a work of the imagination. Parts of the geography of Beaufort, Chapel Hill, and Durham have been altered or simply imagined, and much of what happens in this book resembles nothing about the reality of these places.